From: Kate Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> This is a repost, so apologies to all those who may have read this before, but I thought some of the later arrivals might be interested in a sidelight on the choice of the Elector of Hannover in 1714... A bit more genealogy... (and the Cecils, again...) There is a kind of assumption made by many that the accession to the combined thrones of Britain in 1714 of the House of Hanover was a kind of mistake - a blip, if you like - and that the true bloodline continued in the exiled Stuarts and was lost to the royal house of Britain. However, however undesirable the Hanoverians were individually, their claim to the throne was not at all spurious, and I think it's worth looking at in a bit more detail: Charles I Stuart was never really intended to become King - the first son of James VI and I was Henry Frederick, who died tragically in 1612 at the age of eighteen, a beautiful, intelligent, energetic young man. Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, James' chief minister, had also died earlier in 1612, but not before setting in motion the plans for the marriage of James' daughter Elizabeth to the young Elector Palatine, Frederick of Nassau, the most eligible Protestant Prince in Europe. The wedding of Elizabeth and Frederick in 1613 was one of those extended fabulous Renaissance feasts, and notably infused with Rosicrucian and other Hermetic symbolism. The pair returned home to Heidelberg, a great centre of artistic and scientific culture, where many of the Rosicrucian and allied texts were published. They were both highly educated and deeply interested in such matters, but the tide of history was set against them - Frederick accepted the electoral crown of Bohemia in 1620, and was defeated utterly by Catholic forces at the battle of the White Mountain near Prague. Heidelberg was sacked and the Biblioteca Palatina carried off to Rome. And Frederick and Elizabeth went into exile, becoming known as the Winter King and Queen. So far, the Catholics are winning all down the line (and just what was in the Biblioteca Palatina? Much of it is still buried in the depths of the Vatican...) But Elizabeth was determined to do her best - she had twelve children, among them the wrong but wromantic Rupert of the Rhine, who fought for his uncle Charles in the English civil war. That they all received an unusual education is clear from some of the family portraits - recently on view in Edinburgh - notably that of their eldest daughter, Elizabeth, who is painted wearing the strange pointed hat of a sybil, who corresponded with Descartes, was an astronomer and a mathematician, and became the (protestant) abbess of Herford. The Winter Queen's twelfth child was Sophia (an interesting name), who married Ernst Augustus of Brunswick-Lueneburg, later Elector of Saxony, and whose child was George, later George I of Britain. By an odd coincidence, George was born in 1660, the year of Charles II's Restoration. Now, I don't know about the Priory and the Pope, and I know even less about the Templar/Rosicrucian/Freemasonry links. However, since we accept that lineage through the mother is as valid as lineage through the father (don't we?), I submit that, far from the usual image of Protestant ministers scrabbling around for a suitable non-Catholic successor to childless Queen Anne, and lighting on a distant German cousin, that this was a well-thought out and long-meditated plan. The Stuarts had simply run out of gene-steam, and I think this had been clear at least since 1612. And Some People were looking for new and vigorous blood. I don't think they quite managed it - where did that porphyria gene come from? Anyway, food for thought, perhaps... By the way, I'd just like to compliment Tim on his seriously impressive genealogical research - how poor Michael can hold up his head is beyond me... why does Gardner persist, if all that side of his thesis can be disproved so thoroughly? -- Kate B London ------------------------------------------------------------------------ To unsubscribe from this mailing list, or to change your subscription to digest, go to the ONElist web site, at http://www.onelist.com and select the User Center link from the menu bar on the left. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ http://www.albino.com/circle/pos - - list of priory-related books, associations, and websites
